1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a windscreen wiper device comprising an elastic, elongated carrier element, as well as an elongated wiper blade of a flexible material, which can be placed in abutment with a windscreen to be wiped, which wiper blade includes a central longitudinal groove, in which groove a central longitudinal strip of the carrier element is disposed, wherein connecting pieces are provided at both ends of the wiper blade, which windscreen wiper device comprises a connecting device for an oscillating wiper arm.
2. Related Art
Such a windscreen wiper device is known from European patent publication no. 1 491 416. The prior art windscreen wiper device is in particular designed as a “yokeless” wiper device, wherein use is no longer made of several yokes pivotally connected to each other, but wherein the wiper blade is biased by the carrier element, as a result of which it exhibits a specific curvature. According to the prior art the connecting piece is slid over the neighboring ends of the strips—or vice versa, that is the neighboring ends of the strips are slid into the connecting piece—so that a reliable snap connection between these parts is realized. In the prior art the connecting piece is provided with an opening at its free end so that the wiper blade can freely slide through the connecting piece. In other words, the connecting pieces do not retain the wiper blade, so that the connecting pieces allow a relative movement of the wiper blade along the longitudinal strips in the connecting pieces.
One drawback of the prior art windscreen wiper device is the fact that the connecting pieces (in practice also called “end caps”) and the wiper blade are not connected in a durable, solid manner. Particularly, when a spoiler is only retained onto the strips (and not onto an upper part of the wiper blade facing away from the windscreen to be wiped), the connecting pieces may come loose from the wiper blade. As a result, the life span of the prior art windscreen wiper device may be seriously shortened.